Capablanca, José Raúl ( born November 19, 1888 , Havana, Cuba—died March 8, 1942 , New York, New York, U.S. ) chess master who won the world championship (1921) from Emanuel Lasker and lost it (1927) to Alexander Alekhine. Seethe table of world chess champions.

Capablanca learned the moves of chess at the age of four by watching his father play, and he went on to defeat Cuba’s best player in 1901. He attended Columbia University in New York City in 1906–07 and in 1913 joined the Cuban diplomatic service, an occupation that facilitated his chess career by permitting him to travel to European meccas of chess. Remarkably, in active tournament competition from 1916 until 1924, Capablanca did not lose a single game. He was also proficient at baseball, bridge, and tennis. Capablanca was felled by a stroke while watching a game at the Manhattan Chess Club and died the next day. His chess style had a deceptive appearance of simplicity; at his best, he could make the defeat of another master look effortless.

Several annotated games from Capablanca’s career—Games 10, 11, and 14 of 25 historic games—are viewable with a Java-capable browser.